By KimtheBwordPoet
I always knew I was going to have children. That’s just what girls did when we grew up. That’s how the world keeps spinning. Babies need to be born or the human race will die out. Every grown-up person I knew had at least one kid. So, I just always knew that was my fate.
At 21, I started dating someone who I thought could be the father of my future kids. Bi guy and bi gal raising cute babies together—why not, right? But we wanted different things from each other and those differences were dealbreakers for us. I knew having kids would be a challenge with my Crohn’s Disease, but I wanted to try. He had decided years before that he didn’t want to pass his mental illness to his kids. I was still hurting from years upon years of bullying, abuse, and sexual assaults. I wanted to create a being who truly loved me unconditionally. Who didn’t care that I was black and fat and ugly and stupid and good for nothing but casual sex. That baby would need me. And I desperately wanted to be needed by someone. And all that fit into the narrative of being expected to have kids. I was too young then to realize that I wanted kids for the wrong reasons. He didn’t want kids for the right reasons.
At 23, I chose the name of the boy I would have. I always knew I would name my future daughter Kesha, copying the alliteration theme my mother did with having our three middle names rhyme. I would have my kids’ names all start with K, and my family’s last name as their middle name, so they would always carry my last name along with their father’s. I started working in childcare centers so I could learn exactly how to care for children. Then I met a cute boy named Kiehran. He looked like the first boy I ever had a crush on. And I loved the unique spelling of his name. Okay, so my future kids’ names will be Kiehran and Kesha.
At 30, I hadn’t been in any relationships with men or women for quite a few years. Most in my close friendship circle had had at least one kid by then. Why hadn’t I had one yet? People not even in relationships were having kids, so what was up with me? I honestly just thought it was supposed to naturally happen to me, too.
I remember complaining about my lack of money, and a coworker said, “Just have a baby! You’ll get money, clothes, food, and even a house from the government!” Another time, one of the parents in my classroom asked me if I was married. I told them I’d never been married, I just lived alone with my two cats. They looked at me as if they’d never heard of such a living arrangement before. “You mean you don’t have anybody? No kids, no boyfriend, no one in your life?!” I wish I had the words to describe the level of disbelief this person had on their face when they said that to me. It was then that I realized that I was an anomaly. By 25, no one was going home to just themselves. It wasn’t home if other family members weren’t living there with you.
So, I started watching birthing videos and looking into artificial insemination and adoption. My doctor even prescribed me folic acid because it was supposed to be a good mineral to have in my body if I wanted kids. I was just really preparing myself to welcome Kiehran and Kesha into my life. But the more years I spent employed in early education, the more information I learned about the physical act of having a child, and the worse my financial state became, I didn’t understand why I was doing this to myself. Having kids just because you expect to have them? I deal with kids all day every day—did I really need to go home to them too? I put the active idea out of my mind, but I did start collecting a few items in case the time came. A blanket, a bottle, some pacifiers, a few toys.
At 36, I found the term that changed my life. In 2017, The NotMom Summit* came to my city. This conference was all about support and resources for women without children. Childless women attended, women who’d lost children came, and childfree women came. Until that conference, I truly didn’t know a woman could actively choose not to have kids. I really thought that having kids was just all our fate. But here I was surrounded by women from all walks of life who chose not to procreate.
That’s when I finally put the idea of having children out of my life for good.
Since then, I’ve surrounded myself with friends and online communities full of those who also don’t want children. Every night, I am so grateful to come home and not have any kids there. I don’t ever have to worry about taking my work home. When seriously pursuing someone romantically, I let them know up front that I am not interested in having children. I don’t want to be a stepparent either. I want to create a dream life for myself where kids are not in the picture. Because I now know it is a possibility to actively create that future for myself. I’m no longer terrified of the stork coming to leave a baby inside me. I’m no longer childless, I’m childfree.
*The NotMom Conference: By Choice or By Chance was held in 2015 and 2017, but no longer convenes. There is still an online blog with some articles that you might find interesting at thenotmom.com/blog.
KimtheBwordPoet is a bi poet and writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She runs Bisexual Initiative of Ohio; an up-and-coming organization for Bisexual and Pansexual Ohioans. When not out and about in her local LGBTQ+ community, she is constantly writing, reading, and putting together her debut collection of poetry.